Departments at the college have found different ways to adjust to COVID-19. With the end of the semester upon us, most department events are coming to an end. An event that is still ongoing is the ED talks series by the Continuing Education department.
“I wasn’t a part of the beginning process, but I know that ED Talks was created late March and early April,” Nick Gonzalez, Administrative Assistant Continuing Education, said. “It was created just as a way to be a form of entertainment and education for the community so they could have something to watch when stuck at home.”
Created as a way to adjust to COVID-19, ED Talks quickly became much more than just that.
“Participants are always engaged and there are always lots of people asking for the recording for the meeting whether it’s to share it with someone they know or just for themselves. As of today, we have had 1,500 hundred total people attend our events,” Gonzalez said. “Our ED Talks efforts have won us a Marketing Award at the LEARN (Learning Resources Network) conference which is an annual conference held for all Continuing Education programs around.”
ED Talks offers presentations from a wide variety of topics. The early presentations focused specifically about dealing with COVID-19 but as months passed, topics have diversified.
“We recently had a guy to talk all about travel parks he visited and give advice and tips,” Gonzalez said. “On the other hand, we also have people out there in the professional world talking about their business willing to offer their expertise.”
ED Talk had Paul Heacock, A former CEO of Human Dynamics, author, and speaker, as the guest host on December 4. Heacock’s presentation was on How to Get Along Better with the Important People in Your Life.
“I think we are all struggling right now with COVID-19,” Heacock said “It’s changed so many things in our lives. It also probably made us more focused on the core people in our lives. COVID-19 just emphasizes the importance of getting along with the people in our life. Even with the virus, I just really believe there are simple tools we can use to keep things running in a normal way. Our grandparents were asked to go to war, and we’re asked to do basic and easy things. Events don’t cause stress, it’s our reaction that causes stress. We can’t control the virus and we can control our choices and I just feel it’s critical we take a pause and make good choices.”
ED Talks are free for the public and are given on either Thursday or Friday at 10 P.M. Continuing Education will host the last ED Talks of the semester on December 18. The topic for December 18 talk will be on passive income: how to make your money work for you. To attend, early register to the event is required. Anyone interested can register by clicking here.
By Yohannes Girma